The Empty List
By Mark Lacy
Mark Lacy is an active member of Tylersville Road Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Mason, Ohio, USA. Scientist by day, freelancer by night, he has written for both Christian Computing and the Disciple magazines.

Many of us need little incentive to create yet another list. The most commonly used list is probably a list of things to do, or a grocery list. Some of us get carried away with lists. I have lists of books I want to buy someday, movies I want to see, Christmas gifts I've given in the past that I don't want to accidentally give to the same person again, and so on. I've even been known to keep lists of lists. And let's not forget that Santa Claus keeps lists!

The most important list we use in our church is our prayer list, our list of people who need to be lifted up to God in prayer because of health concerns, tragedy, or other personal problems. When I first started going to our young church, I was impressed with the length of the prayer list relative to the number of people in Sunday morning worship service. As the church's membership grew, so did the list. I began to notice that not only were church members and their relatives appearing on the list, but friends of friends, and sisters of neighbors of third cousins twice-removed. No wonder the list was getting so long!

But I had to stop and think. There must be a reason why my brothers and sisters in Christ continue to add so many acquaintances to the prayer list. I realized that going to the trouble of adding new names, even of people whom we hardly know, isn't just some strange compulsion. There must be faith behind it. Faith that, by adding these names, and telling God that we are concerned about these people, even if we don't know them personally, God will work in their lives and help them with their concerns.

Our prayer list has now grown so long we can no longer easily display it on the projection screens in the sanctuary on Sunday morning. Even reading the list out loud takes a great deal of time. But someday that list is going to be empty.

At this time of year, in the Advent season, we wait anxiously to celebrate the birth of Christ, one of the three great events – along with Christ's death and resurrection – that form the foundation of our belief in God and His plan for our salvation. But we also anxiously await the time when Christ will come again. That he will come again has been promised to us. And when he does, everything we know will change. The Bible hints at what we can expect in the troubling end-times, but it also presents us with a foretaste of heaven.

I know that once Christ returns, our prayer list will be empty for the very first time. There will be neither pain nor sorrow, neither infirmity nor fear. Only an eternity in which to praise God and worship at his feet and ask him everything we've always wanted to know and never quite understood.

Someday we will have an empty prayer list. Hallelujah!

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